Honey Locust

Honey Locust is reported to glue, stain, and otherwise finish well, and most importantly for our purposes, Honey Locust is a very good turning wood, in part due to its density and coloration.

Most authorities report that Honey Locust displays no distinctive odor when being worked either green or dried.

Pricing and Availability

Unfortunately for such a nice, colorful, and excellent turning wood, Honey Locust is not widely or commonly available.  One can sometimes find very limited quantities of Honey Locust from vendors located in its natural range, but it is not a commercially harvested or exported species that one is likely to find at large national chain vendors.

Reverse of Three Small Honey Locust Vessels

Reverse of Three Small Honey Locust Vessels

When available, expects prices for Honey Locust to be the mid to upper range for a domestic hardwood.

I always recommend both West Penn Hardwoods and Bell Forest Products as excellent sources of both domestic and exotic hardwoods.  I have had multiple dealings with both vendors and have always been very satisfied.

Unfortunately, West Penn Hardwoods is not offering Honey Locust at this time.  Bell Forest Products does, however, stock very limited quantities of Honey Locust in the form of pen blanks as well as a small number of individual boards, but they do not have extensive stocks in any size beyond pen blanks at this time.

I also do significant business with two relatively local merchants who specialize in the hardwoods of the southern United States and both have at different times offered Honey Locust.  I have had excellent experiences with both of these vendors as well.

The first vendor is NC Wood, based, as the name implies, in nearby North Carolina and the second are the gentlemen over at Got Wood? in, also nearby, South Carolina.

At this time, NC Wood does not offer Honey Locust.

Interior Three Small Honey Locust Vessels

Interior Three Small Honey Locust Vessels

Got Wood?, however has a relatively good supply of Honey Locust in large bowl blank formats ranging in size from 8” x 2” up to 10” x 4”.  Prices range from $9.33 to $30.56.  They also have a very limited supply of 4” x 4” spindle stock (3 pieces only at this time).  If you are interested in Honey Locust bowl blanks, I would head over to Got Wood now because their stock is limited in all sizes to a total of 23 blanks inclusive of all sizes.  Honey Locust is somewhat of a difficult wood to source so don’t miss out if you want to try it.

While they don’t currently stock any Honey Locust, I would like to mention one additional vendor with whom I have had several very positive experiences, WoodTurningz of Indiana.  Despite the cutesy name, which tends to annoy me, this company does offer a decent selection of bowl blanks although the focus of their business seems to be pen making.  I have found a few species from this outfit which I have not found from any other vendor.  They provided me with good products and excellent service so I can certainly recommend them.

Woodfinder is an excellent website that is dedicated to advertising wood dealers.  In your search for Honey Locust, this can be an invaluable resource provided you use multiple search terms to capture all the possible listings.  I can’t speak to the quality of any of the listed dealers, but Woodfinder does have the advantage of allowing searches to be performed based on location which might allow an interested buyer to visit a listed wood dealer in person to hand pick pieces at a comfortable price.